


A Winter's Tail

by feroxargentea



Category: due South
Genre: (with Canadian spelling), Canadian Shack, Hugs, Love, Lumberjacks, Lust, M/M, Post-Call of the Wild, Puppies, pure fluff, the Ghost of Christmas Morning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-24
Updated: 2016-12-24
Packaged: 2018-09-03 18:59:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8726449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feroxargentea/pseuds/feroxargentea
Summary: In which a queer cop and a Mountie make the world safe for hugs and puppies and Christmas.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Vic32](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vic32/gifts).



> Written for Vic32 for due South Seekrit Santa 2016. Happy Christmas, Vic32!
> 
> Thank you to cj2017, Alcyone301 and alltoseek for beta, and to everyone else I pestered for anecdotes about puppies and snow. The title is cj2017's fault.

* * *

**A Winter’s Tail**

* * *

Fraser paused at the end of the driveway, where the cabin was just about visible through the pine trees. After a lifetime of wandering, it was the first place he’d really thought of as home, and he never tired of watching it appear as he rounded the last few bends in the track.

Its location was breathtaking, nestled in the mountains, but that wasn’t why he’d picked it. Crucially it was only a few kilometers from the nearest town and there was no shortage of work to be had in the tourist seasons. Ray would soon be busy with ski school, although right now he was at home, fixing up the new shower he’d promised himself. (“Hot water pressure like you can _feel_ it,” he’d said seriously. “Wait till you try it, crazy Mountie. You’ll never want a snow bath ever again.”) Piece by piece over the last two years he’d been converting the cabin into a place that suited both of them: far enough from town to give Fraser room to breathe but close enough to have all the modern conveniences a city boy could ask for. Well, a city boy who was prepared to make a few compromises to keep his partner happy. Fraser had never quite found the words to tell Ray how much he loved him for that.

He checked the mailbox: mostly bills and flyers, but there was one envelope addressed to “Stanley R. Kowalski” in Ray Vecchio’s curly handwriting. Smiling to himself, Fraser bundled the letters into his parka and headed up the track towards the cabin.

**~o~o~o~**

Ray emerged from the bathroom, his hands covered in grease and his hair shedding sawdust, and shoved his glasses up so he could read the envelope.

“Huh. Vecchio thinks he’s so funny.” He rolled his eyes, but he was grinning; he never seemed to mind when Ray Vecchio teased him these days. He showed Fraser the greeting card: a turkey in a Stars and Stripes hat, wishing them a happy Thanksgiving.

“Weird, though,” he said, “’cause the Vecchios already sent us a card.” He nodded towards the mantelpiece, where the previous one was perched. It wasn’t a thing you could easily miss: its inscription “to Benny and Kowalski, love from Ray” was in sane, sedate lettering, but another, wobblier hand had added “AND FRANNIE!!!” in pink felt-tip pen and encircled the “Benny and Kowalski” in a giant love-heart, and then covered every last white space with kisses and more hearts and inept drawings of puppies and kittens and rainbows. Ray, on opening it, had been startled into one of his rare, Dief-like barks of amusement, and he’d tacked it open to the mantelpiece so all their visitors would see it. It had at least put paid to their neighbours’ last few doubts about the nature of their relationship. Even old Mrs. McAllister from down the road had started to refer to Ray as “your, uh...friend” instead of “your, uh...brother”.

“Well, they did send us one, yes,” Fraser said, “but that was for Canadian Thanksgiving, and of course you’re entitled to celebrate American Thanksgiving too.”

“Oh yeah, I forgot. Cool.” An extra slip of paper fluttered from the envelope and Ray bent to retrieve it. “Um, Frase, you see this? Says ‘ _This Entitles the Bearer to One Surprise Gift. Be at the Honey Bee Bar & Grill on November 26th at 7 p.m._’ What does that even...” He looked up at Fraser. “That’s this Saturday. We free this Saturday?”

“I’m on shift until six,” Fraser said, “but we could go round there afterwards. I suppose we’d better find out what Ray's been up to.”

He took the card and set it beside its fellow on the mantelpiece, thinking about his old friend. If it hadn’t been for Ray Vecchio, Fraser would almost certainly still be up in the far north, eating his heart out with loneliness and loss and telling himself that he was perfectly fine living a solitary life, just as he’d been in the old days when he hadn’t known any different. But Ray had understood him better than he understood himself, and had tried so hard to look out for Ray Kowalski down in Chicago in those horrible months following the Franklin quest, until at last his patience had snapped and he’d made Ray Kowalski sit down, cop to cop, friend to friend, and talk about everything they hadn’t been talking about. Then he’d written to Fraser, telling him to get his priorities straightened out (“or _not_ straightened out, Benny, as the case may be”), and get his butt back down to someplace where there were jobs to be had (“and roads and people and _pizza_ , Benny, ’cause Kowalski needs _pizza_ ”), and finally warning him to be at the airport in Yellowknife one week later (“or else this is the last time I ever try to help you out, Benny. I mean it, Scout’s honor, I am _done_ here.”)

And when Fraser had gotten there, after endless days of snowmobiling and ice-road truck rides, he found Ray Kowalski stepping down onto the runway, red-eyed and exhausted and shaking, and he took him in his arms and kissed him in front of God and everyone, and swore he’d never be such a fool as to let him go again.

It wasn’t long after that that he’d managed to get a transfer down to BC, to a busy mountain town full of lost hikers and drunken après-ski revellers, and – with Ray in tow, lost in a flurry of paperwork and visas and bewilderment and happiness – he was unsurprised to find he didn’t miss the Territories one little bit.

**~o~o~o~**

On the evening of November 26th, Fraser had only just jumped down from Ray’s truck when they were hailed across the Honey Bee’s parking lot by a local mechanic, a woman he knew by reputation as one of the expert team who kept the town’s ski lifts running. Ray had done a few days’ work for her earlier in the fall, when she’d needed an extra pair of hands to replace some cabling.

“Hi, Ray,” she shouted. “And you must be Ben Fraser. Name’s Marleen. You just follow me right down the road to my place, now. It’s only a kilometer or so.”

Ray looked at Fraser and shrugged. “Better do like she says, I guess.”

They climbed back into the truck and tailed Marleen to an old house set some way from the main road, where she parked her car, pushed open the screen door and walked in, motioning for them to remain in the doorway.

“Hey,” she called out softly. “Hey, girl, it’s just me. Just me and a couple of folks who aren’t going to hurt you. Nice guys, okay, sweetheart?”

She drew back a section of the plywood barrier hemming in a corner of the room and laid it aside. Crouching down in the gap, she reached in to pet a tired-looking husky bitch who lay on a folded blanket, surrounded by wriggling pups, and who lifted her tail to thump a tentative greeting on the newspaper-covered floor.

“The shelter named her Missy,” Marleen said quietly. “My partner and I have been fostering her a few weeks now. They’ve got a good home lined up for her, as soon as the pups are old enough. Haven’t they, Missy? Yeah, you’re a good dog, fine dog... It’s all right, boys, you can come over and meet her now if you want.”

Fraser took a couple of slow steps forward and hunkered down, dipping his head, making himself as unthreatening as he could. Beside him Ray had instinctively done the same thing.

“She was a runaway, no microchip,” Marleen said. “Run a long way, too, from the state of her. She’s doing okay now, though.” She stroked the bitch’s head, fondling her ears. “So, you guys are the first to choose. Pick whichever you want.”

“Pick?” Ray said blankly.

“Yeah, the shelter said your buddy Vecchio covered the adoption fee already, so you get first choice. They’ll be ready to take in another month or so. You won’t be able to register them, though, is that okay? They look mostly husky to me, but the sire was God knows who, so they’re no kind of pedigree.”

“That wouldn’t be a problem,” Fraser assured her.

“Good.” She nodded at them. “I’ll leave you to it, then. Take your time.”

Fraser waited politely until she had gone into the kitchen and then he sat down cross-legged on the newspaper and examined the puppies carefully. There were seven of them, marked in a wide range of shades, and each was active and healthy, as far as he could tell. One of the boldest made a beeline for him, shoving its littermates out of the way, and Ray automatically leaned in and set the smallest pup back on its feet.

“Okaaaay,” he said. “I guess we... I mean, you, uh, you good with this, Frase?”

“Of course, assuming that you are.”

“Yeah! God, yeah, puppies, ’course I am! So, okay, we gotta pick. How do we pick...?”

“Well,” Fraser said, “perhaps not one of the palest ones, because, uh...”

Ray glanced up at him. “Nope,” he agreed quickly, “not the pale ones, ’cause we already got Dief, and Dief’s unique. It’s not like we’d ever replace him or nothing.” He rested a hand on Fraser’s shoulder for an instant, and Fraser let out his breath in a rush, grateful that Ray never needed such things spelling out.

Ray scooped up the largest puppy, its saddle a deep glossy black. “The dark-haired ones are always the cutest, anyway,” he said, grinning as Fraser felt himself blush. Ray reached to support another pup that was trying to climb up to his knee. “Oh, hey, watch it, kiddo! What about this one, Fraser, do you think she’s dark enough for us? She’s kinda, I don’t know, fall-leafish, maybe.”

“Technically that’s orange copper, I believe,” Fraser said. “Canine colours have somewhat idiosyncratic names. Diefenbaker thinks it’s absurd, of course. I have to remind him that he’s partially colour-blind, like all canids, and that human perceptions are necessarily different.”

The bold little puppy had hauled herself all the way onto Ray’s knee by now but she was having second thoughts about climbing down again. She stretched her forelegs halfway down his shin and then hesitated, making up her mind just too late to stop herself tumbling head-over-rump to the floor.

“Hey, look at that! Five weeks old and she’s an acrobat,” Ray said. “Freakishly talented copper-dog. She’s gotta be ours, right, Frase?”

**~o~o~o~**

Fraser had been assigned an early shift on the day appointed to collect the new puppy, and when he got home he could hear Ray’s soft tenor coming from the stacks of firewood, where he was often to be found on sunny afternoons, clad in one of the old plaid shirts he’d co-opted from Fraser’s side of the wardrobe and busy with axe and chopping block. Fraser followed the sound as far as the corner of the cabin and halted there for a minute to watch him at work.

“Ah, for just one time...” Ray sang, and then paused to swing his axe up in an easy, fluid motion.

On that first, strange, disjointed day after his arrival in the Rockies, he’d thrown himself into woodchopping, determined to prove himself equal to the path he’d chosen, attacking each log as if wading into a bar fight, all fierce aggression and misdirected energy, leaving him exhausted and disheartened. It hadn’t taken him long to learn the trick of it, though. Within a week he’d been moving like the dancer he was, the axe his graceful partner in a near-effortless ballet.

There was a THWACK as the log split in two and the pieces clattered to the ground.

“...I would take the Northwest Passage...”

THWACK!

“To find the hand of Franklin...”

THWACK!

In retrospect it struck Fraser as odd that in all the time he’d spent with Ray in Chicago – the long dull days on stakeout, the hours they’d whiled away waiting for backup or for uniformed officers to cover a scene, the countless evenings they’d spent sprawled on Ray’s couch, chewing over their cases or watching the game – in all that time, not once had it occurred to him that Ray could sing. Ray simply wasn’t that kind of man.

Only, it turned out that he was. Just as Fraser could feel himself relax both physically and emotionally as soon as he left the States, so Ray, released from the tension and endless scrutiny of the big city, had seemed to loosen, let down his guard, stop worrying what anyone thought of him and allow himself to be whatever it was he wanted to be. And what he wanted to be, Fraser had been surprised and touched to discover, was a cheerful, confident man who sang to himself as he worked.

Fraser watched Ray’s curved upswing now, the axe-head blinking in the low winter sun as it hung for an instant at the top of its arc, suspended in the cold clear air, and then its swift descent, the blade’s own weight and momentum doing most of the work. The two halves of the log sprang apart and thunked down into the trodden snow, and Ray bent to lift the next one onto the chopping block.

Diefenbaker, who’d been sitting nearby, just out of range of the tumbling logs but ready to hunt down any pieces that bounced too far, got up to greet Fraser, pulling Ray’s attention from his task.

“Hey! You’re home!” Ray flung the axe down and strode over, wrapping his arms round Fraser, and Fraser leaned into the bear hug, inhaling the scent of sawdust and sweat, glad there was no one there but Dief and a thousand pine trees to witness the foolishness of his smile. Even after two years of Ray’s companionship he was amazed anew each day at Ray’s open affection, his obvious happiness.

“You sniffing me, you freak?” Ray said. “I’m gonna bottle that, market it. Make a fortune.”

“Mmm,” Fraser agreed. “Eau de Lumberjacques. Guaranteed to attract Mounties from a dozen kilometers around.”

Ray laughed, his breath a cloud of condensation by Fraser’s ear. “You, me, the woodpile again, huh, Frase? ’Cause I gotta point out, I still got splinters in my ass from the last time.”

“Ah. Well, perhaps you would be kind enough to give me a rain check, Ray. We did say we’d be at Marleen’s by three.”

Ray let go of him, the woodpile instantly forgotten. “Hey, it’s that late already? You shoulda said. Gimme ten minutes to clean up, throw a clean shirt on, fix my hair, then I’m good, okay? Puppies, here we come.”

**~o~o~o~**

Fraser watched the new puppy scamper up to Diefenbaker and crouch into a play bow, her front legs stretched out, her tail wagging non-stop. She’d been nervous of him at first, creeping up in an arc with her tail tucked between her legs, but that had lasted all of thirty seconds, until he’d sniffed the air, given Fraser a meaningful look and hunkered down to greet her at her own level. Ever since then she’d been treating him like a big brother: patient, long-suffering and put there on Earth solely to entertain her. Fraser had commended Dief on his tolerance; privately he thought a little insubordination would do him good. Everyone needed someone to answer them back now and then.

Ray finished wiping the dogs’ bowls and turned from the sink. “So we should think what to call her,” he said, “before you go nuts with the old presidents or whatever.”

“Prime ministers, Ray.”

“Yeah, them either. Okay, we already got a Fraser and a Mackenzie in the family. What else we got? **”** He thumped down onto the sofa and helped the puppy scramble up to his knee, humming to himself meanwhile. “Hmm, hmm, hmm, ‘ _David Thompson and the rest_...’”

“David Thompson is a bit of a mouthful,” Fraser said doubtfully.

“Oh, says the man who called his wolf ‘Diefenbaker’. Hmm, hmm, hmm, _‘brave Kelso’_... Our little heartbreaker here already scaled Mount Kowalski like ten times this morning, so she’s gotta be Kelso, right?”

“Actually, Ray, I think that may have been a mistake on the songwriter’s part. He probably intended to reference the explorer Henry Kelsey, who...”

Ray caught the puppy as she began to slip. “You gonna argue with this face, Fraser? You argue with her, you’re gonna lose. The lady says her name’s Kelso, her name’s Kelso.” He ran a finger down her spine, making her wriggle. “Yeah, yeah, okay, I hear you.” The pup yipped as if in agreement, making Fraser laugh despite himself.

“Greatness,” Ray said. “All fixed.”

He turned the puppy round, ruffling up her pale-coppery fur in unconscious imitation of his own hedgehog hair, and Fraser knew right then and there that, just as he had always been hopeless at refusing Ray anything, he was going to have a very hard time saying no to little Kelso.

**~o~o~o~**

On Winter Solstice they took the dogs for a walk in the snow, because it was traditional, and because Ray generally went along with Fraser’s traditions, provided they happened to suit him too. Besides, Kelso had insisted she wanted OUT OUT OUT, and Fraser was fairly sure she would stick close to Diefenbaker, whose shadow she was fast becoming.

Everything in the world was new and exciting to Kelso, and snow especially so. The first time that she’d leaped confidently off the solid planking of the porch and vanished into the unexpected softness, Ray had laughed so much he’d fallen over too and had to be helped to his feet, clutching his ribs and coated in white to the tips of his hair. She was still enchanted with it, bounding through it, bulldozing it, biting it, and pouncing through its hardened skin, every bit like an Arctic fox trying to catch hidden lemmings, except that all she caught was triumphant mouthfuls of cold white nothing.

Dief, tiring of this child’s play, circled the chaos she’d made of the driveway and sprinted for the meadow beyond, skimming over the snow with expert paws spreading his weight. Fraser watched Kelso struggle up and follow, one careful paw after another; she’d only managed a few meters by the time Dief came hurtling back past her and round the cabin.

Ray hunched down. “Come on, girl!” he called. “Here! Here!”

She spun round, wagging madly, and began to stalk towards his outstretched arms, becoming more confident with every step, dancing now across the surface.

“Yeah, you can do this, Kelso!”

She bounced happily at the sound of her name, one foot coming down too hard and breaking the snow’s crust, and then WHUMPH! she was gone, and Ray was hiding his head in his hands, trying to stifle his laughter.

Fraser watched the pup come up blinking, shaking the snow out of her fur.

“Well,” he said, resting his hands on Ray’s shoulders and rocking him gently, just to feel the warmth of him, his reassuring solidity, “there’s no hurry for her to learn everything. We’re not going anywhere. We’ve got all the time in the world.”

**~o~o~o~**

Fraser had just finished supervising the afternoon feed according to his strict plan (separate bowls, with the dogs facing away so they wouldn’t distract each other) when Ray strolled back in, distracting all of them. Kelso leaped up at him, smearing his jeans with puppy food.

“Hey, Kelso!” he said, pulling her ears. “Hey, Diefenbuddy! Oh, I meant to tell you, Fraser, Vecchio called while you were out, said he’s probably gonna come visit in the spring. Said he’s gotta check up on his pup, make sure we’re training her right.”

“Well, that’s wonderful news, Ray. It’s been too long since he was last here.”

Ray nodded, looking genuinely pleased; he must have been missing his compatriot more than Fraser had realized. “Yeah, and I’ll have more time by then, once ski season’s over. I thought we might start work on an extension, y’know? Add an extra room, so he don’t have to sleep on the couch. Plus, more space for Kelso to wreck.”

“That sounds like an excellent plan.”

“Yeah, and he said he might stay a while in the summer, too, if that’s okay? He could maybe help me with the Outward Bound courses.”

“Of course,” Fraser said. “He’s always welcome, for as long as he likes.”

“Well, okay then!”

Fraser watched Ray wander off towards the woodshed, a tape measure in one hand and Kelso dancing around his ankles, and he wondered how long it would be before it occurred to Ray Vecchio just to find a place nearby and not bother with a flight home.

Not too long, hopefully.

**~o~o~o~**

On the morning of Christmas Day, Fraser was peeling vegetables for dinner when his father appeared, perched on the kitchen table in his usual spotless red serge.

“Hello, son.”

Frase glanced up, his knife pausing just for a second, and then turned back to the pan of potatoes. “Hi, Dad. Nice beard, by the way. That’s new.”

His father stroked the long white beard thoughtfully. “Yes, well, I know what you’re thinking. Grooming regulations and so on. Shouldn’t really cover up the uniform stock. But it’s warm, very warm, and if you can’t throw regulatory caution to the winds when you’re dead, when can you?”

“I really have no idea. Excuse me, I need that bag of carrots you’re sitting on.”

“Ah. I was wondering what that was.” His father passed them over and looked round the room approvingly. “Fine place you have here, Benton. Sturdy. Weatherproof.”

“Yes, Ray’s done a great deal of work on it,” Fraser said, putting a slight emphasis on the name.

“Hmm. Well, it’s a tricky business sharing a roof with someone. You’ll need to watch the little things, you know. Things that don’t come easily to men like us. Stamp the snow off your boots at the door, all that sort of business. Don’t go cleaning your gun on the tablecloth—”

“That’s...very helpful, thanks.”

“—and make sure you keep the cold store stocked up. Fish, meat, blubber...”

“This isn’t the Arctic!” Fraser realized he’d begun to gesticulate and lowered his arms. He was _not_ going to get annoyed by a ghost, not on Christmas morning. “Besides, Ray doesn’t even eat blubber. He’s more of a pizza sort of man.”

His father’s mouth moved silently, forming the syllables two or three times: _piz-za_. “Well, son, whatever it takes,” he said at last. “Just as long as you keep the place stocked up with it.”

“I intend to. Dad, did you have any particular reason for stopping by, aside from giving me shopping tips?”

“No, no, nothing particular. It’s just that your mother and I, uh...” His father coughed, clasped his hands in front of him, and then let go and clasped them behind his back. “It’s just that we’ve noticed over the last couple of years that you, uh, you seem to be, uh, _happier_. Quite a bit happier, in fact. And your mother thought it might be worth pointing out to you that this, uh, state of affairs might have something to do with, uh...well, not to put too fine a point on it, with the company you’ve been keeping.”

“Right,” Fraser said. “Because obviously that wouldn’t have occurred to me.”

“No, well, men like us never see these things. So your mother wanted me to tell you that this, uh, fellow of yours – this, uh, Ray of yours – might be worth hanging on to. If you can.” His father turned his hat round in his hands, smoothing its brim. “Hence the, uh, blubber and so forth.”

Fraser stared down at his paring knife, the half-peeled heap of vegetables suddenly blurring in his vision. His father had turned up countless times since his death to offer advice – generally useless, often infuriating, and sometimes at the most inopportune moments – but never before had he acknowledged Ray’s status as anything other than colleague or friend. Fraser cleared his throat.

“Thank you, Dad,” he said, his voice not quite steady.

“Don’t mention it. Oh, and Benton...?”

“Yes?”

“Happy Christmas, son. To both of you.” His father stuck the hat back on his head, turned away and stepped bodily through the wall of the cabin. For a few seconds Fraser thought he could hear a soft jingling like the harnesses of a dog team being taken up, and then the sounds faded into the rushing of the wind in the pines, and the ghost was gone.

**~o~o~o~**

“Hey, you think I might be going crazy?” Ray said. He was stretched full length on the couch, with his head in Fraser’s lap and one arm reaching down to tickle Kelso’s stomach as she lay next to Diefenbaker on the hearth rug. “I mean, yeah, obviously I’m crazy; I’m shacked up with a queer Mountie in a log cabin in the ass-end of nowhere and I’m still thinking it’s a good plan. So, okay, screw loose. But d’you think I’m any crazier than usual?”

“I hadn’t particularly noticed you acting in an uncharacteristic fashion, Ray, no.”

“’Kay. Right. Good.” Ray paused a moment, tousling Kelso’s fur abstractedly. “But it’s just, you know this morning, when you were in the kitchen and I came in and Kelso was trying to come in, only she was carrying that stick – y’know, the one too big to go through the door...”

“Yes, I remember.”

“Well, uh, for a moment there I sort of thought I maybe saw something against the far wall. Like, a sort of redness? A patch of red?” He waved his hands in front of his face in a chopping motion. “I’m serious, the whole air was kinda red, like someone had hung your dress-coat up in thin air. And then it was gone. Screwy, huh?”

“Perhaps,” Fraser said carefully. “Perhaps not.”

“Plus, okay, don’t laugh, but I thought I maybe heard something, too.”

“You did?”

“Yeah, and I musta had redness on the brain – Santa’s suit or whatever – ’cause it sounded just like someone saying ‘Happy Christmas’.” Ray shifted so that he was looking up at Fraser, a frown creasing his brows. “So, what do you think? D’you think I’m going extra-crazy?”

“No.” Fraser stroked the wayward tufts of hair from Ray’s forehead and bent down to kiss him there, his chest tight with an almost unbearable tenderness. “No, I don’t, Ray. I think you’re crazy by just the right amount.”

**~o~o~o~**

Late that night Fraser lay half-dozing, lulled by the soft colours of the aurora playing across the bedroom window’s square of sky. Beside him Ray was propped on one elbow, watching the dogs curled up on the rug.

“Hey, Frase, you still awake?” he whispered.

“Mmm. Just about. What is it, Ray?”

“It’s just, you know the way Dief and Kelso twitch in their sleep, like they’re dreaming? You think they got that whole personal universe thing going on in their heads? Y’know, that me-me-me thing, like we got?”

Fraser turned onto his back, blinking and trying to marshal his thoughts. “Well, Diefenbaker would certainly say so, but in spite of the efforts of modern neuroscience and philosophers down the ages, we still have no way to be sure of any other being’s conscious awareness—”

“Yeah,” Ray said, “but they could be lying there thinking the same thing about us.”

“I suppose they could be, yes.”

“So if dogs got their own universes going on, you gotta be real careful giving ’em away to people. You can’t just hand someone a whole universe to take care of, not unless you’re pretty damn sure that it’s wanted, that it’s gonna get treated good. Can you?” He paused for an answer, and when it didn’t come he poked Fraser hard in the biceps. “C’mon, Fraser, don’t make me play Bad Cop here. You were in on this whole thing, right?”

Fraser stared at the ceiling, fully awake now. “I’m not sure what you mean,” he hedged.

“Hey, Mounties don’t lie! You _knew_ about it. You knew all along!”

Ray’s tone was accusing but his outrage didn’t quite ring true; Fraser took a deep breath and rolled over to check, and sure enough Ray was grinning at him.

“Very well, I confess,” he said. “I was ‘in on it’, as you put it. Ray Vecchio thought you might like a puppy, so he checked with me first and I went looking for one that needed a home. He just wanted to be sure he was doing the right thing.”

“Hey, it’s okay, I’m not mad at you.”

“You’re not?”

“Nah.” Ray took Fraser’s face in both hands and kissed him, a lingering, thoughtful kiss, drawing it out until it left Fraser dizzy and breathless. “You did good. Both of you did good. Seriously, best Christmas present ever.”

“Really?” Fraser said, shifting closer until his body was pressed up against the full length of Ray’s. “Ever? Are you sure about that?”

Ray huffed in amusement and set his mouth to Fraser’s ear, biting down gently. “Okay,” he mumbled through his teeth. “Go ahead, I dare you. Prove me wrong.”

Fraser wrapped one arm around Ray’s hips, pushing himself up on the other so he could look down at him in the moonlight. “Happy Christmas, Ray,” he said.

“Mm, yeah. Done talking here, Frase.”

Fraser ran his fingers through the wild disorder of Ray’s hair, across his mouth, his neck, the tensed muscles of his chest, feeling his ribs flare at the touch.

“Understood,” he murmured. “Understood.”

 


End file.
